World Premieres of Some of my Music

Three years ago, a young tenor I’d worked with as an accompanist commissioned me to write him a cycle of four songs.   In order to present these publicly, I decided to include them in a concert of selected vocal and piano music that I’d written up to that point.  

The concert was somewhat frivolously named The World Premieres of Some of My Music; several of the songs had previously been performed here in my home town of Dunedin.   Various local singing teachers had also

been using some of those songs with their pupils, and at the concert, and old friend of mine, also a singing teacher, sang two items himself, as did some of his adult pupils.    The remainder of the songs and piano pieces were new.

The young tenor’s quartet of songs included the reflective Sabbath, the nine-minute long Church Sunday (a kind of scena), and the exuberant Ecstasy with a ringing top A at the end.     There was also a piano duet written to accompany a reading of the children’s book, The Fence.

This year, in September, I will present a number of new compositions, including a set of eight short songs set to words by Peter Olds, a nationally-known Dunedin poet.   This set, Small Pictures of Dunedin, which takes about twelve minutes in all, will be sung by a locally-based contralto.    Most of these eight songs tend toward the reflective – with bursts of drama – though one is a jaunty and humorous piece.  They require a good A below middle C from the singer, and an accompanist who can whistle a few times during the last song.

Because almost all the material that will feature in this second concert is new to the public it may well be entitled, The World Premiere of a Good Deal of My Recently Written Music – although that doesn’t quite have the Colgate ring to it.  

Two of the new songs, Welcome Morning, and The Cockerel, have been written for soprano and require strength rather than agility – although the latter has a few bars requiring an agile tongue.    Two other songs, Heaven, and Echo, are medium range and are suitable for someone still in the early learning stage, though they require good tone and sustained breathing.  

This year we’ll have something different on the instrumental side: one of New Zealand’s top cornet players, John Lewis, will be performing a couple of pieces specially written for him.

I’ve been writing songs and other music since the mid-60s; some of these have had a decent burial, a good number have been performed.   My style might loosely be called classical modern, though I rarely require singers to sing against complete dissonance, or deal with rhythms of excessive difficulty.   My preference, wherever possible, is for the audience to hear the words – and for the singer to be able to get them across. 

I enjoy writing children’s songs, and while these require the pupil to work, they’re not out of the reach of a competent young singer.   August Morning and The Rooster have proved their worth with a number of youngsters.    In the forthcoming concert, we will perform I’ve Never Heard the Queen Sneeze (as humorous as you might expect) and Brother, a song that requires good breath control from the young singer and an ability to put across the rhythmic words.

I lean towards using the words of New Zealand poets, and have written songs to words by J K Baxter, Hone Tuwhare, Ursula Bethel and Ruth Dallas (who was present the first time the songs I wrote to her poems were written), among others.  However the upcoming concert has a mix of poems by both New Zealanders and poets of other nationalities.   

A good deal of my musical life (part of it professional) has been spent either as a répétiteur, teaching singers their roles in operas and musicals, or as an accompanist for a number of the city’s singers.    So I’m well attuned to what works for a singer, and ways in which to give them quality material to sing.    Being a pianist, I usually give the accompanist a reasonable amount to do as well, having spent quite a bit of my life playing accompaniments that failed to inspire.    Accompaniments, for me, are an integral part of the song: they set the tone, give the singer a sense of atmosphere and drama, and sustain them in the high points. 

These days I print all my music out via the Sibelius music programme.   This provides clean, readable and affordable copies for anyone wanting to use the songs. For those wishing to get some idea of the music, a recording of the first concert is available on CD.    The next concert will also be recorded.